Are Monarch Butterflies being Archived?

July 8, 2015 and I have not seen a single Monarch butterfly on the Asclepias Syriaca (common milkweed) in our front yard or our side yard. Not a single leaf of the hundreds show any chewing. Not a Monarch caterpillar can I find. The plants were purchased from Monarch Watch. They are affiliated with the University of Kansas and the plants are lush. One of them has grown to a lofty 7′ tall, with a fine looking flowerhead higher than 6′.

This year reminds of 2014, when I didn’t see them until very late August. Those 2014 Monarchs I saw sipping nectar on my Blazing Stars and on Asclepias Syriaca in Doak field at Raccoon Creek State Park.

It’s July and I have not enjoyed a view like this one in 2015. This photo was taken some years ago at Raccoon Creek State Park in southwestern Pennsylvania. We know how this situation gnaws away at us.

Admission? I find myself thinking how fortunate I am to have more than 20 quality images of Monarchs stored in my Neumade slide cabinets. Then I regret even thinking this unthinkable. What if they . . . ?

Ay, if we could round up Peterson, Edwards, Nabokov, and Audubon and get them over to the mucky mucks in Washington, D.C. to do some heavy lobbying. A dreamer am I.

Jeff

2 thoughts on “Are Monarch Butterflies being Archived?”

I have such fond memories of tagging for Dr. Urquhart and cherish the personal correspondence he and Nora and I exchanged way back then!
Monarchs arrived here in Chautauqua county a month later than they usually do and they are few and far between so my heart soars when I am out and about and see one this year, and did find 5 eggs that I am raising now. I will put the adults in their little screen tent after they emerge and let them mate and lay eggs on pottede milkweed for a few days and then release them back into the wild to lay the rest of their eggs on the milkweed plants in my yard and surrounding neighborhood. That way I am sure that I can raise and release perhaps 50 – 100 mature healthy monarchs that will wing their way south this fall.

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